Introducing Our Instant Pot Duo & The Initial Water Test

Welcome to our introduction to our Instant Pot Duo 60 and the initial water test. We have finally got around to purchasing our Instant Pot Duo 7 in 1 electric pressure cooker. And we wanted to introduce you to our new bit of kit.

You see we are food bloggers that focus around kitchen gadgets so I am sure you’re wondering what took us so long and why this wasn’t on our blog a year ago.

Well for starters there are only so many hours in the day and with having three kids, a country cottage and our blogging business to run we have to prioritise. Therefore the first 13 months of our blog here at Recipe This has been focused around the other kitchen gadgets we own.

But during the Black Friday deals we decided to bag ourselves one and see what all the fuss was about. We love the fact that you can save time and that you can do it all in one pot. The thing we dislike most about our slow cooker was the fact that it didn’t have a sauté function, yet you had one with this so that you could create those delicious dump meals.

But the more I read about it the more I thought the Instant Pot Duo was too good to be true. After all how on earth could you cook vegetables in just a couple of minutes and how was it possible to bake a cheese cake in one.

These were of course all things that had got us talking and made us want to give it a try. The slow cooker function wasn’t really that interesting to us because we already had two but everything else had grabbed our attention.

We picked up our Instant Pot Duo 7 in 1 on the Amazon Germany Black Friday deal it was less than 100€ including delivery and we bought it from the Germany site because we could then have it on the same electric plug as Portugal rather than needing an adapter if we’d bought it from the UK.

The Instant Pot actually arrived during our daughter Sofia’s second birthday party celebrations on Black Friday. While everyone was waiting for the price to be slashed on Amazon.com we were in receipt of our own Instant Pot. But because family was there and we were so busy with our newborn we left the box on the floor and it stayed there for a day.

What I found really sad is that I kept reading on Facebook about people that just left them in the box and never actually used them because they were scared about the idea. But not me I was all for it and couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

But of course it is like the unknown and a totally different way of cooking and its like been in the kitchen with your mum when you are little and starting all over again.

I mean they even mention an Instant Pot water test and that on its own is enough to freak most of us out!

The Instant Pot Water Test

So you have jumped in and taken the Instant Pot out of its box, read everything about it and finally have it plugged in.

After taking delivery of your Instant Pot you are reading that you must do a water test on your new Instant Pot and you’re already feeling overwhelmed by this point.

But this water test is easier than you think. I listened away as Dominic unpacked ours and set it up like a pro. He has always been really good with electrics and if a chef can’t set one up what is the hope for the rest of us?

Here are the step by step instructions for doing a water test on your new Instant Pot:

Turn your Instant Pot on

Make sure your seal is seated properly in the lid

There is no obstruction of the valve going out of the Instant Pot

Make sure your condensation connector is connected at the back

Add water up to the 3 cup line

Place your lid on so that the lid is successfully seated

Make sure the valve at the top is pointing at the sealing

Press the steam button

Press the minus button down to 2 minutes

When it beeps the cycle will start

When the Instant Pot hits its temperature the countdown will begin

When it is done it will beep and enter keep warm mode

Here are some extra notes:

The valve pointing at the sealing means that it is sealed and the pressure wont come out

When the cycle starts it will heat the water up and then the pressure will build up to the correct cooking temperature. You will know this because there will be a little valve that will push up next to the sealing valve.

When it is finished and hits keep warm mode it will have another 10 minutes before you can release the lid (due to the pressure inside) or you can manually using the sealing valve, flick it over to release, but be warned it will be very hot steam and you need to move quickly to stop yourself having an accident.

The instructions state to fill it up to 3, please note that this is cups not litres

Introducing 30 Days Of Healthy Recipes

I recently read on a forum that most people are so scared of using them that they remain in their packaging in the long term. They might have got it as a gift and believe that electric pressure cookers such as the Instant Pot are just as hard work as the manual bulky ones of the 1980’s. But things have improved a lot since then and they are a fantastic kitchen gadget for the modern busy family.

But on a side note it is like starting again from scratch. You are learning how to boil an egg for the first time again, make your first Instant Pot stew, the first jacket potato and the list goes on and on.

So we decided to share with you our own journey of Instant Pot cooking from scratch and over the next 30 days we will be sharing with you a different Instant Pot recipe a day starting with the easiest functions and working our way through them.

But this is also January the diet month of the year, so don’t expect to see lots of high carb recipes full of added sugar. Instead the recipes will be easy healthy family ones that we can all enjoy. So we look forward to sharing it with you.

And of course it will give you the chance to enjoy easy to follow recipes that saves you trying to work out the times and how all the functions work!

LOL sorry i had to laugh at that comment as that is what went through my mind when ordering one. We have not had any bad experiences with ours and we have put together some posts to help beginners get the best from there instant pots:

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Hello, we’re the Milner’s and we run Recipe This from our home in the Algarve in Southern Portugal. We’re made up of husband and wife duo Dom & Sam along with our 3 amazing kids. We love cooking with our huge collection of kitchen gadgets.

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